Stefan Ratchford: I’ve had to put my own bins out this week

Warrington ace Stefan Ratchford said he had to put his own bins out this week as he faces his hometown club Wigan in the Grand Final.

The Wolves face the Warriors in the 2018 Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford on Saturday night, 6pm kick-off.

Ratchford’s family are Wigan fans but admitted that they will be cheering for him on Saturday and will be hoping for a Warrington win.

“My family are Wigan fans and rugby is all you know as a kid growing up in Wigan,” he told loverugbyleague.com.

“I grew up 10 minutes away from Central Park and when they moved to the DW, I was only five minutes away, so me and my mates would get together and go the DW and watch Wigan.

“I’ve certainly seen a lot of Wigan games in my time – but I wouldn’t say there is any added motivation to win it on Saturday. The Super League Grand Final is at stake. We could be playing Wigan St Pats’ second team and the motivation would still be there to get the job done in a Grand Final.

“My family have kind of grown up as Wigan fans – but when I went to Salford, they became Salford fans and now I’m at Warrington, they are Warrington fans – pretty much all the neighbours in the street are Wigan fans, so I’ve had to put my own bins out this week! There’s a few bragging rights in the street at stake and I definitely want them as well.”

The 30-year-old has played in three Grand Finals and lost each time, two of them coming against Wigan in 2013 and 2016.

Warrington were also runners-up in the Challenge Cup earlier this year and Ratchford admits it would be good to get the monkey off their backs and clinch the Grand Final on Saturday.

“I think we’ve got to take something out of coming up short in the Challenge Cup,” Ratchford added

“But I don’t think we can say ‘we’ve lost the Challenge Cup, so we need to win the Grand Final’. Getting to Old Trafford is a target of every team so we’re really privileged to have this opportunity again.

“To make any final is a massive occasion and an experience you have got to be thankful for – but we can’t be happy to just keep making finals and coming up short.

“We’ve lost three Grand Finals and two Challenge Cup in the last couple of years, so it is about time we were smarter and a bit calmer and hopefully we can execute on Saturday.”